The Mentalist Marathoner Appears on ‘America’s Got Talent’

When mentalist Oz Pearlman steps onto the stage of Radio City Music Hall on Tuesday night as a contestant on America's Got Talent, he'll be leaning on his running experience to stay calm under enormous pressure.

“My act isn’t dangerous, but there's an inherent risk of it not working,” Pearlman said on the phone on Thursday in between rehearsals. “It’s akin to the last mile of a marathon where you’re giving it everything. It’s the same kind of mental fortitude.”

Pearlman, 33, started developing his magic skills as a teen, after watching a magician perform on a cruise ship. As the years have gone on, he’s transitioned to a mentalist act, reading people's minds using suggestion, subliminal messaging, body language, and statistical analysis.

He also started running as a teen, though his introduction to the sport wasn't stellar. “I ran cross country in high school for one season, and I was pretty much the worst person on the team,” he said. “Not only was I terrible, but I think I brought down morale for the team.”

He switched to running for enjoyment in college and kept at it. He ran his first marathon in Philadelphia in 2004, which he says was a typical first marathon experience. He had hoped to BQ, but instead he calls the race “a disaster.”

“I ended up walking the last three miles,” he says.

He didn’t give up, though, and he says he trained smarter for his second marathon, the Mohawk Hudson Marathon, which he ran in 2005 in 2:56:09 for 13th place.

“Every year I just kept clipping [off] 10, 12, 13, 14 minutes,” he says. He set his current PR of 2:23:52 at the Philadelphia Marathon last fall. He finished 10th overall, 10 years after he ran his first disaster of a marathon there.

Pearlman has won the New Jersey Marathon four times and holds the course record (2:28:19 in 2011). He has also won the Hamptons Marathon three times and holds the course record (2:27:50 in 2008). In May, he won the Long Island Marathon in 2:25:25 to set that course record.

He's had success in ultrarunning, too. In 2006, Pearlman ran the Chicago Lakefront 50 miler—his first ultra—and won it in a time of 6:05:09. Since then, he's won that race three more times and stayed on the ultra circuit, scoring finishes at Badwater (135 miles), Western States (100 miles), Leadville (100 miles) and the Spartathlon (153 miles).

Pearlman's success in running has dovetailed with his success in performing. While he was working on Wall Street, he continued doing gigs on the side as a magician and mentalist. He racked up appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, CBS's Early Show and ABC's World News Tonight and has done his act for bold-faced names ranging from Kelly Ripa to Joe Montana to Stevie Wonder to Bill Clinton.

Ten years ago, he made mind reading and magic his fulltime job. Earlier this year, he showed up at an open call for America's Got Talent, and made it through two rounds of judges' cuts to be in the final 36. Those 36 will perform their acts on Monday and Tuesday nights, and voters will decide which 24 will stay for the next round, to be revealed on August 26. Semi-finals begin September 1.

Through all this, Pearlman is training to run three fall marathons: Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia, with a goal of breaking 2:20 at Chicago. He's preparing by running 100 to 115 miles a week, during which he has also been developing his act for America's Got Talent.

“I'm not listening to any music or podcasts,” Pearlman said. “I'm brainstorming and talking to myself, scripting jokes and rehearsing my act, figuring out how I'm going to do the mindreading. I'm creating new material for the show so that it's going to be very unique and original.”

Pearlman does most of his mileage at between 7:15 and 8:30 minutes per mile, he says, and does one speedwork session or tempo run per week, plus he cross-trains on a spin bike at his home in Manhattan.

But Radio City Music Hall comes first at the moment—the 6,000 people in the live studio audience and millions watching from home. For him right now it’s “eyes on the prize, focus on the goal,” he said—like that last marathon mile. “That’s what I'm doing with America's Got Talent.”

Watch Oz Pearlman perform on America's Got Talent on August 25 at 8 p.m. on NBC.

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